It is desirable to be able to construct a lighted pushbutton electrical switch which may be easily adapted for the switching of either one or two normally open circuits. At the present time, with rapidly rising production costs, it is becoming more and more necessary to reduce the manufacturing costs of such a switch without sacrificing reliability. The switch of the present invention is constructed so as to achieve these objectives.
An additional problem exists if the lighted pushbutton switch is to be employed in keyboard operations. In such applications, it is highly desirable to supply a feedback or "feel" characteristic to the operator which increases abruptly when the switch is initially closed and which then drops off rapidly after the initial closing in order to reduce operator errors. Many prior switches provided a "feel" to the operator before the contact was actually electrically closed, with the result that tactile feedback was supplied to the operator at a time when contact closure had not actually been achieved, which resulted in operator errors during rapid keyboard operation. The switch of the present invention is designed to provide a feedback or "feel" characteristic that is ideally suited for keyboard applications.